1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging lens, and particularly to a small-size lens appropriate for an imaging apparatus, such as an electronic camera. Further, the present invention relates to an imaging apparatus including such an imaging lens.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, many digital cameras with large-size imaging devices for example by APS format, Four Thirds format or the like mounted therein were provided for the market. Recently, not only digital single-lens reflex cameras but also lens-interchangeable digital cameras without reflex finders and compact cameras using the large-size imaging devices became provided. The advantage of these cameras is their excellent portability because of the small size of the entire system while achieving high image qualities. As the size of the cameras has become smaller, a need for reduction in the size and the thickness of lens systems is greatly increasing.
Small-size imaging lenses composed of a small number of lenses, and which cope with such large-size imaging devices, are proposed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2009-237542 (Patent Document 1), Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2009-258157 (Patent Document 2), Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2010-186011 (Patent Document 3) and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2011-059288 (Patent Document 4). In all of the imaging lenses disclosed in Patent Documents 1 through 4, a negative lens is arranged closest to an object side, and they have a lens structure with so-called retrofocus-type or similar arrangement of refractive power.